Food Better Than Healthcare While the healthcare sector has been called a miracle for the way it has handled the pandemic, the food industry has been criticized and USDA has announced billions in grants to make it more “resilient.” Yet food remained completely available whereas hospital beds and vaccines ran into short supply. Moreover, vaccinations and death rates from the disease do not correlate well. The number of deaths per 100,000 and the share of the population with a single dose of vaccine has an R2 of 0.04; using a fully dosed metric is even worse, finding a correlation of just 0.01 correlation. Italy with 73 percent fully vaccinated suffered 2.6 deaths per 100,000 whereas Ukraine with just 28 percent fully vaccinated...
Key Market Insights The broad market is locked in on this week’s Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing, but this is no longer just a trade summit. Increasingly, the meeting is becoming tied directly to Iran, energy security, and the growing global economic fallout from disruptions through the Strai...
From WPI Consulting
Forecasting developments in production agriculture
On behalf of a private U.S. agricultural technology provider, WPI’s team generated an econometric model to forecast the movement of concentrated corn production north and west from the traditional U.S. Corn Belt. WPI’s model has subsequently provided quantitative support to a multi-million-dollar investment into short-season corn variety development. WPI’s methodology included a series of interviews with regional grain elevators and seed consultants. Emphasizing outreach and communication with stakeholders who possess intimate sectoral knowledge – on-the-ground insights – is a regular component of WPI’s methodologies, made possible by WPI’s ever-growing network of industry contacts.